Broken Hearts: Thawing the Holy in Us
Sermon at Saint Mark’s Cathedral in Seattle
The Very Reverend Robert V. Taylor
The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, July 30, 2006
2 Kings 2:1-15; Ephesians 4:1-7, 11-16 & Mark 6:45-52
On Thursday I was on the website of Voices in Wartime
reflecting on a passage by Parker Palmer about broken hearts.ii He suggests two ways to picture a broken
heart. The first is a heart “broken by unbearable
tension into a thousand shards” that often become
shrapnel “aimed at the very source of our pain.” Palmer
says that this heart is an “unresolved wound that we
inflict on others.” Then he gets to something much more
arresting; he visualizes what a broken heart may mean.
He invites imagining a “small, clenched fist of a heart,
‘broken open’ into largeness of life, into greater
capacity to hold one's own pain and the world's pain and
joy.” This heart broken open becomes very different than
the shrapnel of the first broken heart. The heart
'broken open' becomes a way of healing and enlarging our
empathy and our capacity to reach out to the world, to
others.
I was sitting at home on Thursday preparing this sermon
and reflecting on the theme that runs through the
reading from Ephesians, “bearing with one another in
love,” “speaking the truth in love,” and a faith
community “building itself up in love.” Then word came
that the Cathedral had gone into a lockdown and that a
man with a weapon was in the Nave. I immediately jumped
into the car and came up to Saint Mark's.
A disturbed man brandishing a knife and a brick had
attempted to break all of the primary symbols of the
Christian faith that he could find in the Nave. The
baptismal font, the symbol of new life in God, was
broken and strewn across the Nave in hundreds of pieces.
The container of Chrism, the wonderfully fragrant oil
used to anoint the newly baptized, was shattered and
glass was strewn about. The Nave was filled with the
aroma of the oil as it mingled with the baptismal water
traversing the floor.
The Paschal Candle, the symbol of the Risen Christ, was
broken in several places, lying on the floor like a
dismembered, broken body. The Eucharistic table was
pushed off the liturgical platform and was lying
upside-down on the steps. It looked like the wasteland
of a battlefield.
Raphael, a parent of a GAGE Academy of Art student,
first saw the person doing damage to the Lutheran Church
across the street. The perpetrator had already done
damage to a Presbyterian Church on Capitol Hill. Raphael
realized that the man had a weapon and so he immediately
called 911 on his cell phone and followed him here. As a
result, the police arrived as the perpetrator was
leaving the Cathedral and were able to apprehend him.
All of the violence and damage that I described took
about four minutes.
A couple who were in the Nave praying when this violence
began was quick in their reactions, and the staff
lockdown procedures were swiftly implemented. No one was
personally attacked or threatened by the perpetrator. I
want you to know how superb the staff team was in their
swift responses and clear actions.
The symbols that were destroyed are being replaced. And
there is even a new baptismal font in place this
morning! On Thursday afternoon after the debris was
cleaned up, I walked through the Nave several times.
Each time there were one or two or three people at
prayer or in meditation in this sacred space. And, of
course, we gather this morning as we always do, at the
Eucharistic table of generous feasting, changed by the
reality of such violence and desecration, but asking
what gift there may be in this.
In the brokenness of the symbols, the shards of glass
and pottery, and the Eucharistic table upended, many of
us were struck by the way in which the open, sacred
space of the Nave is a metaphor of the very openness of
life with Christ that takes us to what Parker Palmer
imagines: a heart and life “broken open” into greater
capacity to hold one's own, and the world's, pain and
joy. While we do not know anything about the perpetrator
or his state of mind or spirit, the very symbols that
were destroyed are reminders of brokenness, despair and
death giving way to new life, new hope and resurrection.
Many of us commented on the intrusion of violence into
the meditative, sacred space of the Nave being a
reminder of the violence that permeates so much of the
world right now. The seemingly unstoppable violence in
the Middle East, the terror of bombs and rockets, of
innocent civilians killed and, of course, our own claim
to be able to destroy and bomb whoever we like, whenever
we like, because we were once attacked.
And then on Friday, a Muslim man claiming that he was
upset at what is going on in Israel opened fire at the
offices of the Jewish Federation in downtown Seattle.
Our prayers and our hearts are with those who were
injured and the person killed and, of course, with their
families, friends and colleagues. The violence in the
Middle East provides no justification for violence
between persons of different religious traditions in
this city. This horrific act in our city must never
happen again to any person of any faith.
Although quite different, the violence at the Jewish
Federation on Friday and the desecration of the
Cathedral on Thursday are small reminders of the
violence and hatred of our time. In this time of
fear-driven madness, of people across the world cloaking
themselves in self- righteousness in the name of God,
Allah or Yahweh, what does it mean to not just talk
about, but to be reconcilers and healers who live into
the love, mercy and hope of God? What does being that
lead us into doing? I believe that it is in our hands
and hearts to bridge and heal the divides among people
of faith.
In today's Gospel, Jesus tells the disciples to “Take
heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” In her poem "Maybe,"
Mary Oliver writes of the experiences of Jesus'
followers and his calming of the sea. She suggests that
they knew that Jesus, “tender and luminous and demanding
as he always was” was in truth, “a thousand times more
frightening” than any “killer sea” or violence. iii
The writer of the letter to the Ephesians knows that a
community of faith which is defined by the fragrant love
of God, rather like that aromatic Chrism that flowed
from a shattered container across the floor of the Nave,
can only be held together by bearing with one another in
love, by building itself up in love.
The eighth-century poet Rabia, who was from Basra, says
in her poem, Die Before You Die, “I was born when all I
once feared -I could love.”iv
And eight centuries later, Teresa of Avila wrote a poem
entitled When the Holy Thaws Us. She talks about being
fragile and in need, describing God as a medic on a
field. Teresa of Avila asks questions like those of
Parker Palmer and Rabia: “Why this great war between the
countries - the countries - inside of us? What are all
these insane borders we protect? What are all these
different names for the same church of love we kneel in
together?”
Like the disciples in the boat who knew Jesus was
present with them in the midst of difficulty and
violence, Teresa of Avila says that God the divine medic
kneels over the earth and that God's love “thaws the
holy in us.”v
Imagine God's love thawing the holy in you. Imagine
God's love thawing the holy in us. We can ask what needs
thawing, but we know a large part of the answer. How
does the violence and desecration of the Nave, the
violence of a Muslim against Jews in Seattle and the
war- filled zeal of our time lead us to love all that we
fear, so that our hearts might be “broken open?” How
does the horrifying sight of a desecrated Nave or the
horrifying sights of war, presented as entertainment on
CNN and Fox, allow us to go to the truth? The reminder
that we are followers of the Christ who, “tender and
luminous and demanding as he always was -” Was, in fact,
“a thousand times more frightening” than any violence,
desecration or “killer sea.”
This Jesus invites our hearts and our lives to be
“broken open.” It is in our hands and hearts to bridge
and heal the divides among people of faith.
Amen.
NOTE: Rev. Robert Taylor's sermon may be found at the
St Mark's web site:
http://www.saintmarks.org/Sermons Etc/sermons.htm
-- or on the Voices in Wartime web site:
http://voicesinwartime.org/article.htm
ii Parker J. Palmer, The Politics of the Brokenhearted,
(San Francisco: Jossey Bass).
iii Mary Oliver, “Maybe,” from New and Selected Poems,
Volume One (Boston: Beacon Press 1992), pp. 97-98.
iv Rabia, “Die Before You Die,” in Love Poems From God,
ed. Daniel Ladinsky (New York: Penguin Compass, 2002),
p. 7.
v Teresa of Avila, “When the Holy Thaws,” op. cit. pp .
290-291.
Forward this email to a friend!
To order the book or DVD, go to
http://voicesinwartime.org/order.htm
Voices in Wartime is a 240-page book containing the most powerful and eloquent
voices - poets, writers, reporters, and veterans - testifying to the trauma and devastation of war, and the need for healing.
Voices in Wartime is also a feature-length documentary that delves into
the experience of war through powerful images and the words of poets –
unknown and world-famous. Poets around the world, from the United States
and Colombia to Britain and Nigeria to Iraq and India, share their
poetry and experiences of war. Soldiers, journalists, historians and
experts on combat interviewed in Voices in Wartime add diverse
perspectives on war’s effects on soldiers, civilians and society.
See a Trailer of the Film: Go to
http://voicesinwartime.org/trailer.htm
Learn More about the Film: Go to
http://voicesinwartime.org/movie.htm
Featured poems from Voices in Wartime are now
available in MP3 and Windows Media audio formats on the web site. Visit
the
Poems in the Film page to download and hear the audio clips.
Go to
http://voicesinwartime.org/poems.htm
Sign Up
...to get this monthly e-mail from the Voices in Wartime Education
Project, a newsletter of art, essays, and ideas for
healing conflict and the trauma of war, plus news about Voices in Wartime.
Go to
http://voicesinwartime.org/register.htm
Home -
http://voicesinwartime.org
About the Movie -
http://voicesinwartime.org/movie.htm
About the Education Project-
http://voicesinwartime.org/about.htm
Contact Us -
http://voicesinwartime.org/contact.htm
To unsubscribe: If you'd rather not receive e-mail from
us, please
go to
http://voicesinwartime.org/unsubscribe.htm
or
send an e-mail to info@voicesinwartime.org,
with "unsubscribe" in the "Subject"
line.
|
